November 8, 2013

No Help for Gun Violence

The U.S. House members aren’t in session right now except to have hearings haranguing Secretary of Health Kathryn Sebelius about the problems with Obamacare’s website. They come back next Tuesday for the month’s eight days of work—technically six days because there are no votes before 6:30 pm the first day of their week and none after 3:30 pm the last day. After their scheduled eight days in December, they can breathe a sigh of relief as they get onto the planes running on time because they tweaked sequester laws for personal benefit.

Fortunately, thanks to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chair of the Rules Committee, we know the complete House agenda. “Everything we do in this body should be about messaging to win back the Senate,” he said. “That’s it.” At least, the House has a wider agenda than the Senate. Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced in 2008, a nanosecond after President Obama was elected for the first time, that his entire agenda was to see that the president wasn’t re-elected. He failed which means that he has nothing on his agenda now except to get himself re-elected.

For the rest of the 113th Congress—which still has another year after the end of this one—the voters who elected the obstructionists will see no movement on any issues– immigration, gun control, anti-discrimination laws like ENDA, tax reform, lifting the sequester …. The list goes on. The farm bill may have to operate on a half-century-old law because the House won’t compromise with the Senate. We can forget about any results from the joint House and Senate committee’s budget proposal due by December 7 with a January 15, 2014 deadline for acceptance.

Gun control is certainly dead despite the number of people killed each day. In his satiric column, Andy Borowitz described gun violence in the country:

“A new study released today indicates that Americans are safe from the threat of gun violence except in schools, malls, airports, movie theatres, workplaces, streets, and their own homes. Also: highways, turnpikes, libraries, places of worship, parks, universities, restaurants, post offices, and cars. Plus: driveways, garages, gyms, stores, military bases—and a host of other buildings, structures, and sites.

“National Rifle Association C.E.O. Wayne LaPierre applauded the study, saying that it reinforced his organization’s long-held position that the United States does not need additional gun laws. ‘This study makes it abundantly clear that Americans are in no danger of gun violence except in these isolated four hundred and thirteen places,’ he said. He added that he hoped that the study would spark a conversation ‘about the root cause of mass shootings: people who recklessly show up at places where they could be shot at.’”

Black humor aside, the NRA made it easier for a gunman to kill a TSA agent and wound six others at a LAX security checkpoint a week ago. It was the second airport shooting in six months. The NRA has consistently campaigned for firearms to be brought into airports with greater ease and criticized security for any efforts to block guns on airplanes. Although federal law prevents travelers from taking firearms past checkpoints, many state laws allow people to carry guns before they reach security checkpoints because of NRA propaganda.

Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin either permit firearms in areas of airports or prohibit them only past checkpoints. In California, where the most recent airport shooting occurred, the NRA fought 2012’s Assembly Bill 2182, requiring the arrest of people who bring guns into airports and banning them from entering airports after that arrest. Thanks to the NRA, the bill stayed in committee. Virginia, Georgia, and Ohio have recently introduced bills that would allow people to carry firearms in airports.

After a TSA agent questioned a girl carrying a firearm-shaped purse, the NRA cried harassment. Yet TSA agents confiscated 30 percent more guns, many loaded, in 2013 than the previous year. Most of them said that they “forgot” they had them, which means that the presence of guns in our society is almost everywhere. The week before the LAX shooting, the TSA found 29 firearms—27 of them loaded. The week before, the take was 39 firearms.

The NRA also gives candidates “A” rating for supporting guns in airports. The group spent more than $500,000 to make Ken Cuccinelli governor of Virginia after he voted against a 2004 bill that would have banned guns in airport terminals. The bill won, and Cuccinelli lost. The NRA may argue that looser gun laws would have stopped the LAX shooting because a bystander would have shot the gunman. That doesn’t really work, as history has shown.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-KS) lost her AR-15 after she left it leaning against a locker in her unlocked garage.

Missouri House staffer Dave Evans left his loaded gun in the men’s restroom of the State Capital Building.

Someone lost a loaded gun under a chair cushion in a New York hotel, and another left one on a ride at Disney World.

A nine-year-old boy found a loaded semi-automatic gun in the men’s room of a movie theater in Tampa (FL), and seventh-graders found another one in another movie theater in Tillamook (OR).

An armed guard left his loaded weapon in a public restroom at a Texas convenience store.

Two loaded guns were left in a tent outside a Georgia furniture store.

Another gun was in a Dallas (TX) courthouse restroom.

Gun owners held a gun legalization rally in Ohio in September to prove that gun owners are responsible. Someone left a loaded magazine behind in Oberlin’s Park Street Park after the rally.

Guns show up in public buildings, restrooms, garages, homes—everywhere. All this means that kids can find guns in restrooms or on a Disney ride or while sitting on a chair in a hotel. Three fifth-graders even found a loaded gun at an archaeological dig.

Criminals might be more responsible in knowing how stupid and careless these gun owners are. In Cincinnati (OH) a man found a note in his car: “LOADED GUN: Unlocked Car = STUPID” and “LOTS OF Children in Area.” Missing were the man’s “throwing knife, sheath, .40 caliber pistol and magazines.” The man had left his Toyota Corolla unlocked.

In at least one North Carolina state-mandated concealed carry handgun (CCH) class, necessary to get a CCH permit in the state, a law enforcement officer told attendees to store loaded guns under the bed. The state doesn’t monitor these classes to see how they are run.

People opposing any gun control laws refuse to tolerate a reasonable discourse about the subject. Guns & Ammo editor Jim Bequette wanted to generate a “healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights” by publishing a column that suggested a little regulation might fit into the Second Amendment. The backlash caused Bequette to quit and the magazine to cut ties with the column’s author. the column’s error came from defending an Illinois state law requiring training for people before they could get a concealed-carry permit in the state. The author of the column wrote:

“I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly. And I do believe their fellow citizens, by the specific language of the Second Amendment, have an equal right to enact regulatory laws requiring them to undergo adequate training and preparation for the responsibility of bearing arms.”

The mainstream media has become so blasé about mass killings that they fail to report many of these. A few days before the TSA agent will killed at LAX, a Texas man shot and killed five people. Yesterday, the killing of three people and injuring of another six by a shooter in Detroit didn’t even

When a seventh-grader shot a teacher, two 12-year-old boys, and himself at a school in Sparks (NV), major cable news channels referred to the disaster only briefly throughout the day. The breaking news event that day was the release of Apple’s new iPad and iPad mini. The shooting was the 15th school shooting of the year but the first time that the new technology had gone on the market.

Killings are so common that police have joined in the violence with no excuse. Tyler Comstock, 19, was shot and killed by a police officer on the campus of Iowa State University because Comstock’s father wanted to teach him a lesson. After his father wouldn’t buy him a pack of cigarettes, Comstock took his father’s truck without permission. The father reported the theft to teach his son a lesson, and the police pursued Comstock. He pulled over the truck, but when he didn’t turn off the engine, a police officer fired six rounds and killed the unarmed teenager. The officer ignored two pleas from an unidentified police staffer, who said, “Hey, we know who this is. It’s a kid, back off.”